Recently I was checking the timezone map from Eric Muller (Adobe) and came to the conclusion that he had the Kostanai (or Kustanai) area as part of the Qyzylorda time zone although they are not even adjacent, but still on comparatively the same longitude. The area of Kostanai I assumed was part of the main area of Kazakhstan represented by Asia/Almaty. I am not sure where Eric got his information from, but the story doesn't end here. I found a russian astronomical page HYPERLINK "http://zaytsev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=10571"http://zaytsev.com/forum/vie wtopic.php?p=10571 that raises the issue that this so-called ZET 8 time is wrong. Here is a translation from Google of the original russian article === Quote begin === Thu Apr 17, 2008 4:14 pm Posted: Thu Apr 17, 2008 4:14 pm ZET Post: Temporary amendments to the ZET ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- Help solve the dilemma with the definition of a temporary correction. I was born in Kostanai area in November 1976. Some astrological programs, including ZET 8, provide a temporary amendment +4 GMT. At the same time, Moscow is +3 GMT. This means that the difference with Moscow entire 1 hour. But it never was. The difference has always been 2 hours. And parents attest to the fact that the difference with Moscow has always been 2 hours. The program ZET 8 geo gives a sharp change of a temporary amendment to a very long period: 01 Jan 0001 00:00 LMT +00:00:00 01 Jan 0001 00:00 LMT +00:00:00 02 May 1924 00:00 +04:00:00 02 May 1924 00:00 +04:00:00 21 Jun 1930 00:00 +05:00:00 21 Jun 1930 00:00 +05:00:00 01 Dec 1956 00:00 +04:00:00 01 Dec 1956 00:00 +04:00:00 01 Apr 1981 00:00 +05:00:00 01 Apr 1981 00:00 +05:00:00 In fact this change temporary amendment in 1956 is due to the change of time zones. I can not find any information about the change of time zones in 1956, although the time change occurred not only in the Kostanai region. This tool, please, if anyone has information about this change of temporary amendments of 1956, which legislation has been done? Even familiar to consultants not able to answer that question. Do not mistake that caused even if Spravochnikov coordinates of the first edition of Cities and temporary amendments and continually reissued by different authors ... Let us find the truth in this matter, as he stubbornly insist that the time of my birth at +1 GMT differs from the time in the program and is +5 GMT. I think if I would have the rights to many "go" horoscopes ... But it is still "a friend of Plato me, but the truth is more expensive ..." === Quote end === I guess you can't expect miracles from an automated translation. What I understand from the email is that this person claims to have been born in Kostanai in 1976 and that time there since has "always" been GMT+5 or rather Moscow time plus 2 hours. This does not correspond to the Asia/Almaty time zone but corresponds pretty well with the Asia/Qyzylorda time zone. The thread is not faultless for instance another person grabs a part of the World Time Explorer file Historic.txt and concludes that Astana was on GMT+5 from 1930 to 1991 while in fact the correct number is GMT+6 I might be exaggerated in assuming this is authoritative information (yet) but all the same perhaps readers of this mailing list have more information they can share. The mixture of Eric's map with the administrative regions however shows another difference that I can't explain, see the following map: HYPERLINK "http://www.worldtimeexplorer.com/Kustanai-2008-11-09.png"http://www.worldti meexplorer.com/Kustanai-2008-11-09.png The red borders are the time zones of his map. The black zones are the recent administrative regions, as we can also see on this wikipedia map of the Kostanai region: HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Kost_obl.svg"http://en.wikipedia.org/wik i/Image:Kost_obl.svg but Eric's map contains a bite of the Astana area. In conclusion if the Kustanai/Kostanai region has always been on Qyzylorda time, we don't have to do anything to Kazakhstan timezones but it would be good to document this on the notes to the Asia/Qyzylorda time zone. Whether the Kustanai region covers modern-time administrative area or not will then be very important to the maps of Eric and WTE, but not directly to the tz database. Also I think it would be good to add all current administrative regions of Kazakhstan to the notes of the asia file. Any comments are welcome. - Jesper Nørgaard Welen No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG. Version: 7.5.524 / Virus Database: 270.9.4 - Release Date: 2008-11-14 0:00